Euro Area
Amid a range of geopolitical narratives, what matters is that the US strategy of economic engagement with its rivals is failing, giving rise to a new strategy of containment that will reinforce the secular rise in geopolitical risk. Our market-based quantitative indicators of geopolitical risk are set to rise in the coming year.
In this Insight, we review the performance and rationale for our current set of tactical fixed income trade recommendations. Our highest conviction positions also happen to be our most successful trades: positioning for a narrowing of the German bund-JGB spread and wider Japanese inflation breakevens.
European markets have room to rebound in the coming weeks, however, a recession looms. What are the lessons from history that investors can use to position themselves under these conditions?
The Netherlands has a healthier and more stable economy and demography than its European peers. Investors should stay overweight developed European equities, including Dutch equities, relative to emerging European equities.
Labor markets are softening in most developed economies, as is usually the case in the lead-up to recessions. Our base case is that the global recession will begin in the second half of 2024, but we will be monitoring our MacroQuant model on a daily basis for confirmation.
Natural gas storage levels in the US and EU are sufficient to balance flowing supply and demand this winter, assuming normal weather. China continues to invest in domestic production, and to diversify supply sources to compensate for a lack of storage. Longer-term Qatari contracts are giving higher weight to natgas trading hub prices. We remain long the XOP ETF to retain exposure to fossil-fuel producers supplying DM and EM economies with natgas beyond the 2050 net-zero-emissions goals advanced by the IEA.
The Eurozone’s inflation will continue to slow over the coming months. While this trend will help Bund prices, will it boost the appeal of European equities?
